The Sorrowful Parting

This post ends the series of my time in Korea, the joyous land where I was delightfully (not so much...) lost for four days and thoroughly enchanted with sights, sounds, and smells. Anyway, I wrote this back in early September but even though it's two months old, nothing in it really needed to be updated, so without further ado part 4!!!:


OK so this post is going to wrap up the Korea talk for now unless I go back (which have been invited back by an enterprising foreign teacher here who claims she can show me around Seoul without any problems. Since she’s Korean, I’m inclined to believe her, but we’ll see...). Anyway, my last day there was the sum of the entire trip, lots of fun couples with lots of frustration. I woke up early and left my bags in the lobby (again). This time I decided to trust them and leave my computer in the lobby since I didn’t feel like lugging it all over the city. Our stop for the day was the National War Museum, which was freaking sweet AND I had a camera with a fully charged battery so I was able to take pictures! (And o did I take pictures. Close to 200 in like 90 minutes. I was camera crazy!!!)

The museum itself was dedicated to the ROK (Republic of Korea- South, as opposed to the DRK- Democratic Republic of Korea, North [in case I hadn’t already gone through that...]) armed forces. It detailed their involvement in liberation from Japan (while the country was still unified), to the Korean War, to their involvement in UN police actions. There was alot of cool equipment and uniforms (there are also pictures of me firing a gun. I’ll get those on Facebook ASAP) from throughout the years. They had a special wing dedicated to the Korean War itself, with a memorial for every country that donated either soldiers or medics. Then they had a bunch of confiscated North Korean weapons, mainly provided by the Soviets, that you could climb into and an exhibit on South Korean munitions suppliers. And in the basement there was a history of Korean military actions and primitive weapons starting several thousand years ago. All in all a cool experience.

After the museum, I hustled back to Insadong to eat one last meal before I needed to go to the airport. I ate some bibimbap, which is rice and vegetables with an egg on top. It was delicious. So up this point, great day. However, it’s about to take a turn for the worse. I planned on getting a cab on the main street, then directing it back to the hotel (which, once again, was in an alley), because my bags were just too heavy for me to carry to the street (to point out how heavy they were, I had a bruise on my shoulder from one of the straps of my big bag because I carried it for too long without taking a rest). My flight was at 6 and I wanted to get to the airport at 3 since it was an international fight to Beijing, which meant leaving Seoul around 2. A little before 130 I went to the Citibank near my hotel to make sure I had enough cash for the cab ride. Of course the doors were locked again. Luckily, I’d given myself extra time so I didn’t stress, I just walked down the street to try and find an ATM. Walking soon turned into frantic wandering because I couldn’t find a global ATM (the situation being exacerbated by the strict no jaywalking laws in Seoul. At one point it took me 3 full minutes to cross a street diagonally because I got caught at both lights. I was furious.). Finally I was able to find an ATM after 35 minutes of wandering. I started walking back towards my hotel, wanting to get a cab as close as possible to a) save money and b) I thought if the cab were close to the hotel, it may have a clue where my hotel was.

I get in a cab, hand him my o shit card, of course he has no freaking clue where it is. I attempt to tell him I want to go to the hotel first, get my bags, then the airport. He has no clue what I'm saying beyond airport. After driving for a minute, he pulls over to talk to a traffic cop, who spoke limited English. I told him the same thing I told the cabbie. This somehow got interpreted as: My hotel is near the airport so drive there now. (Note” the meter is running this whole time). Luckily I knew the cabbie wasn't going in the right direction after talking to the cop so I made him pull over and pointed at the card and kept repeating Insadong (the neighborhood of the hotel). He calls someone to get directions (finally) and we’re able to pick up my bags and get to the airport in a somewhat timely fashion.

Once there, he didn't ask me my airline, he just dropped me off at the terminal. My itinerary said Asiana Airlines, which took me a minute to find. The line was ridiculously long. I waited in it for 40 mins (yea, I timed it...), get to the counter, and of course there's a problem and of course the guy isn't telling me what's wrong. After typing for a minute and frowning the whole time, he left to go talk to someone else and bring her over, all while speaking Korean. Finally, they tell me I'm flying Eastern China Air, and I'm at the wrong counter. They also don't know where Eastern China Air counter is and tell me to ask the immigration desk, which I couldn't find. Great times! So after some wandering (a constant theme...), I finally found it, and waited another 20 minutes in line. At the counter, first the lady tells me my bags are too heavy and I had to pay a fee, so she sends me around the corner to an Asiana Air booth, where I'm charged more than $100 even though from New York to Seoul I wasn’t charged anything (in fact, when I asked the guy at the counter if I went over, he said no, so I turned to my mom and joked that we should’ve tried to cram even more stuff into my bags. He was not amused and told me I barely made the weight limit). I return and she tells me that bag is oversized, so I have to lug it across the terminal again to get to the oversized bag check in. I finally take care of that and go to the bathroom before going through security. Leaving the bathroom, I realized my ticket was no longer in my pocket and I proceeded to freak out. It fell out in the main hallway of the terminal and no one picked it up, or ran up to me to tell me it happened. Luckily it was still there. I went through security and wanted some Western fast food but of course, I was in the new terminal and I had to take a train there, so I decided to get to my gate first, then investigate food options later. I was already impatient and got even more pissed when some old white guy (yes, I do feel the need to point out he was white. All people annoy me equally, not just Koreans) stepped in front of me on the escalator and wouldn’t move out of my way after I made it clear I wanted to walk by him (most escalators in Asia have tape on the middle of the stair: stand to the right if you want a joyride, go on the left if you want to walk). I finally made it to the terminal and there was no Western food. I ate some crappy Chinese dish instead. I was able to use to the internet for free, which was nice, but some reason I chose the mini computer (picture on Facebook), instead of a regular sized one, so my fingers were too big for the keyboard. That was my bad though. I will say my gate was in the new terminal, which is the nicest/cleanest terminal I've ever been in. So Korea has that going for it.

When I got to Beijing (after yet another mini-panic attack on the plane- I’d been getting better with flying but I feel like I’m regressing right now. I’m attributing it to flying over severe storms back in March. That was a scarring experience), more shenanigans ensued. My non-oversized bag was the first one off the baggage claim, which was awesome. After standing there another minute, I see a sign for an oversized baggage claim and figure that's where my other bag will appear (another case where thinking caused me more problems than not). I wait there for about 30 mins, reading a book. The whole time a worker was standing, alternately holding the elevator/doing jack shit. After another 15 mins, I ask her if this is the oversized bag claim, she says yes. After another 15 mins, no bags are coming out of there and it looks like none are on the way. I got kinda nervous since this bag had ALL of my clothes in it, on top of numerous other valuable properties. I decided to walk back to the original baggage claim to see if it was there. Of course somehow the bag got by me as I was standing there and was on the original claim with a few other stragglers. bah.

Next I got to go through customs, which is always fun in China since they always stop me. This time was no exception. The lady pulled me to the side and asked me to open my big bag. She pawed through it for like 20 seconds then asked me if I had any CDs. I told her I did and gave her the case. I got nervous because the DVD case was full, and I had around 20 bootleg Chinese DVDs in there, and she was clearly going to see them. Last thing I wanted was a fine or for my stuff to get confiscated. She flipped through every page of the book (and I mean every page looking at every DVD, it took her over a minute), then put it back and let me go without saying a word. It made absolutely no sense. Why the hell is she looking for DVDs when she does nothing after seeing my bootlegs? Argh China sometimes. Like now in the subway, they moved on from paper ticket to cards, like Boston. However, unlike Boston, if you're buying a single ride card, you can't buy two at once so you don't have to wait in line on the return leg of your journey. No, that would make too much sense. Cards only work at the subway station at which you buy it. I found that out in Beijing when I thought I smartly bought a return ticket when I first got on the subway, only to have it not work at the station on the way home. Anyway, that concludes my Korean adventure. Stay tuned for more Wuxi/random stories throughout my time in Chinaland!